Getting together with my teammates for a post match barbecue is always more enjoyable when we win. Despite giving up a goal in the final minute of our game, we secured a decisive 2-1 win this morning. I have lost my starting position to our new recruits (mere 50 year olds) but still play about 45 minutes each match. Our host this afternoon had an outdoor wood-fired pizza oven which we put to good use.
It has been 13 years since we moved to our home in Concord. While it can be seen in many photos I have taken over the years, the field which is an extension of our back yard has never been the sole subject of one of my photographs until this evening. Jeanine and I went for a late afternoon walk during which we enjoyed all the early signs of spring. I spent the bulk of the day doing household repairs including the replacement of our garbage disposal which finally bit the dust.
A few additional photos from the trip Maya and I made to California.
Maya and I arrived in Boston at 1:30AM this morning. As such I am deeming photos made during this trip eligible for posting today even though they were actually taken yesterday.
After another incredible breakfast, Maya and I started making our way to the airport for our return flight to Boston. We did so by way of Highway 1 with frequent stops along the coast including the lighthouse station at Pigeon Point and the beaches of Half Moon Bay.
Maya’s attempt to kill me today almost proved successful. First, she set a grueling 3.7mph (as measured by my very accurate GPS watch) hiking pace as we covered a total of ten miles in Pinnacles National Park this morning. For reference, I generally shoot for 2mph over such terrain. I am convinced she is part Billy goat. Second, she picked up a huge boulder (pictured above) and tried to throw it at me.
Our first hike was on the Old Pinnacles Trail to the Balconies Cliffs and then the Balconies Cave for just under 7 miles. Traversing the cave required some scrambling and tight maneuvering (see entrance below).
We then made a short drive to Bear Gulch where we added 3 more miles on the Bear Gulch Cave and Rim trails which took us to and from the delightful Bear Creek Reservoir where Maya was unable to convince the local squirrels to attack me.
With no restaurants in the park we decided to lunch in Monterey. Maya Yelped us a great little breakfast spot where we each had 2 eggs, hash browns and toast for a grand total of $3.25 including tax. Quite the contrast to our Palo Alto breakfast yesterday which came to $30 with tip. Realizing that Maya had never been to the Pacific Ocean we decided to tour the famous 17 Mile Drive and stopped frequently to enjoy the views, the water, and the Pebbles Beach golf course lodge and 18th hole.
Our final stop for the day before driving to Santa Cruz for the evening was the Basilica of San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo Mission (Carmel Mission) founded by Fr. Junipero Serra in 1770, making it the second of the 21 California missions.
Our college visits today included my alma mater, Stanford University, and Kyle’s, Santa Clara University. I was amazed by the number of new buildings on campus since I attended. It was actually hard to find my way around. When I took Maya to see Lake Lagunita, one of my favorite places to chill out, I was disappointed to discover that it has been dry for a number of years due to environmental concerns.
After we finished with college tours we drove to Pinnacles National Park where we arrived just in time to pitch our tent before night fall. Once reduced to a total population of 27 and near extinction, the California Condor has been successfully bred in captivity and now numbers more than 425. We were exceptionally fortunate to view 16 of them circling in the night sky and I was able to isolate this pair with the near full moon in the background. They were very far away but with a 10 foot wingspan they are hard to miss.
An early start from our hotel near the San Francisco airport had Maya and I to U.C. Davis by early morning for our first college visit. The campus was a ghost town. Yesterday their was their Picnic Day with festivities continuing into the early morning. It seemed like the entire student body was sleeping in. Our next stop was U.C. Berkeley which lays claim to discovering 16 of the elements on the Periodic Table, 21 Nobel laureates, 32 libraries, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
We were joined for dinner at a Greek restaurant in Palo Alto by Kyle and his girlfriend Corina and longtime friends of Jeanine and I, Ann and Brian Ponty.
Maya’s 2 year old Apple laptop has been behaving erratically lately. It overheats for no apparent reason and then fails to boot up for some time. This morning we dropped it off at the Apple store where it is being sent back to the factory for repair under the Apple Care warranty/insurance. When it is returned we will sell it to offset the cost of a new 12″ MacBook that we picked up while in the store. At 2 pounds, it is about half the weight of her older 13″ model and has a beautiful high-resolution Retina display.
Maya and I are headed to California this evening to visit with Kyle and make college visits to Stanford, UC Berkeley, Santa Clara, and UC Davis. We will also be camping in Pinnacles National Park for two nights. Meanwhile Jeanine left yesterday to join her sister for a long weekend in Montreal.
Followers of this blog may recall that I was a mentor in the Gordon Leadership program at MIT. My mentee, Nora, has gone on to a very successful career at Microsoft. Jeanine and I attended her wedding to Simon in August of 2013 and now look what they have created. What a cutie!
Snow storms this past winter brought down one of our big pines and countless branches throughout our yard. Together with the bushes and vines I removed yesterday they provided fuel for an all day bonfire. Jeanine helped me for parts of the day and we were joined by Maya late in the afternoon to enjoy our massive “campfire.” There remains at least another full day’s worth of branches that I will deal with tomorrow. Concord has fairly strict regulations around open burning and a permit must be obtained each day. This used to require a drive down to the fire station but is now easily handled online.
See if you can find the devil in the flames.
I can’t remember the last time I put in an 8 hour day of yard work but it has probably been close to 15 years. I think I will wait another 15 before trying it again based on the unanimous opinion of my aching muscles. There are just a few days in early spring when it makes sense to clear the underbrush and vines from the woods that line one side of our property. Too early and you freeze your butt off. Too late and everything has leafed out making the job five times harder. Normally, I give anything with thorns a wide berth but this year I decided they were getting out of control and took out about twenty bushes. Each one found a unique way to draw blood in an attempt to dissuade me from the task.
Although her big party was on Sunday, today is Jeanine’s actual birthday. I still see my 27-year-old bride in her beautiful face. We had a nice lunch date to celebrate the occasion and finished it with a scrumptious cheesecake. Regrettably, Jeanine had to endure my solo acapella rendition of Happy Birthday.
From sun up till sun down my entire day was consumed with preparing my federal and state income taxes. Between receiving income from two different companies, exercising various stock options and restricted stock units, and dealing with royalty income, it was an exercise in extreme frustration. The 6-digit incremental tax bill on top of all the withheld taxes was no prize for all the effort.
Jeanine celebrated her 53rd birthday with a party of her own design. She invited twenty or so of her friends to prepare one of the recipes from the memoir cookbook she is writing and bring it to sample with the others. Each guest was asked to provide feedback on both the quality of the recipe and instructions as well as the taste of the final creation. My contribution was to make images of the various dishes for inclusion in the book. Jeanine reported that it was one of her best birthday parties ever!
Earlier in the day I played in my first game of the spring outdoor soccer season. We travelled to Ludlow, MA, a 90 minute drive to face Lusitano. My lack of conditioning contributed to one of my worst performances ever. I did manage one good play, a long cross which I served right onto the foot of an overlapping fullback. The man marking him tried to clear the ball and wound up putting it in his own net which earned me credit for a goal and helped our team win by a margin of 2-0.
Jeanine and I are starting to think about how we will spend our time when Maya leaves for college. One idea we both like is the idea of becoming Road Writers. The new Tesla will be able to tow up to 5000 pounds and we are thinking about picking up a touring trailer and hitting the road. As we travel across the USA, Jeanine will interview people in different parts of the country for a new book about food insecurity while I continue my blog from the road. Its just an idea at this point but I did spend the better part of the afternoon looking at small Airstreams.
Buckman Tavern, located on the Battle Green in Lexington, MA is a historic American Revolutionary War site associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord which began early on April 19, 1775.
Having received word that the regular army had left Boston in force to seize and destroy military supplies in Concord, several dozen militiamen gathered on the Lexington town common, and then eventually went to the tavern to await the arrival of the British troops. Definite word reached them just before sunrise, and Captain Parker’s company of militia left the tavern to assemble in two ranks on the common. Following the arrival of the army, a single shot was fired, by whom, it remains unknown. The British regulars, out numbering the colonial militia three to one, then opened fire leaving 7 of them dead. When the British advanced to Concord they met a much larger contingent of Minutemen at the Old North Bridge. There, for the first time, the Americans, acting under orders, fired upon and killed British soldiers. The colonist continued to fire upon and ambush the British as they retreated to Boston killing 73 and wounding 174.
Jeanine and I visited the tavern, now a museum, this afternoon and enjoyed the history lesson. Of even greater interest was the second floor exhibit dedicated to the Battle after the Battle between Concord and Lexington, each vying to be considered the birthplace of the American revolution.
The Series 7 exam, also known as the General Securities Representative Exam (GSRE), is a test administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that must be passed before stockbrokers are issued a license to trade. One-third of those taking the 6-hour test do not pass on their first attempt. Kyle, whose continued employment was contingent on passing, did so on his first try with a very good score. We are very proud of his achievement and congratulate him on the milestone.
I found myself in the vicinity of the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge this afternoon and decided to walk around the Water’s Edge trail. It was cold and windy and there was not much in the way of wildlife to see. Even so, I enjoyed the fresh air and exercise. In the coming weeks, this place will become alive with a great variety of birds. I will return with a long lens when things warm up a bit.
I had a meeting in Cambridge this afternoon and had a chance to photograph the Boston skyline from a high vantage point. For the first time since I can remember there is a new skyscraper on the horizon. Located on the left side of the image above (beneath the “C” in my watermark) is the 60 story Millennium Tower. It is nearing completion and at 685-foot tower will be the tallest residential building in Boston.
I received a notification from Tesla saying that my Model X will be delivered in the April/early May time frame. Based on my experience with the company so far, I am setting my own expectations for June/July. All the reviews I have read so far suggest that my two-year wait will have been worth it. Time will tell.
The opening game of my spring outdoor soccer season was postponed because our home field was covered in 3 inches of snow. Given that my trip to Asia prevented me from training with my team, I can really use the extra week to get my soccer legs back. The forecast says we are in store for even more snow over the coming days.
My nephew, John William Quinn, pictured above with his sister Rachael, will start working for Nielsen Media Research the week after next as a Product Manager. Jeanine decided we would celebrate with a dinner at the restaurant of his choice. Live Alive in Cambridge was his selected and the plan was to have Rachael join us there as a surprise. The problem was that no one bothered to tell me about this plan and I spilled the beans. It was just as well since Rachael went to the location in Lowell rather than Cambridge. In the end all worked out and we had a wonderful meal. Sadly, this probably means that Johnny, who has been living with us since graduating, will be moving to a place closer to his new job. He has been a great addition to the household and we are going to miss him. Below, Maya decides to pose with her dinner. She remains a very odd but lovable child.
Maya had several friends over this evening including Sarinnagh who is celebrating her 17th birthday. With my photo collection fairly well organized now, I was able to quickly put up a slideshow featuring the 400+ pictures I have taken of Sarinnagh over the last 13 years. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane and I have rarely been so proud of my efforts to document the lives of my children and their friends through photography. I believe the girls were equally inspired so it took little persuasion to add some new memories to the collection.
At around 5pm I received a distress call from Jeanine. She had dropped her collection of keys (car, house, mailbox, work) into a storm drain as she was unloading food for Open Table. I arrived with a spare car key, a crude fishing wire, and surveyed the situation. The keys were not visible and were probably submerged in the water at the bottom of the sewer some 9 feet below the grate. I returned home and fashioned a proper retrieval device from a 10 foot long 1″x1″ piece of scrap wood and three rare earth magnets affixed to the end of the stick with Gorilla tape. I returned to the grate, happy no one had parked on top of it, and proceeded to conduct a grid search on the base of the storm drain. My first pass was just below the surface of the water. The second was 3″ below the water where I skimmed along the top of the sediment at the bottom of the drain. On the third pass, at about 6″ under the water and well into the sediment layer, I felt the magnets mate with the keys. I then gingerly lifted the keys up to the bottom of the grate and ever so slowly grabbed onto them and pulled them through. The entire operation took 25 minutes with me seated on the ground as rush hour traffic streamed by. I have little doubt that half of the town of Concord witnessed me fishing in the storm drain and are convinced I have gone mad. Returning home with the lost keys, I was greeted by Jeanine with hero status. Her Facebook post on the outcome can be found at this link.
Maya decided she was going to shower Nala with affection this evening (for reasons not apparent to me) and requested that I take this photo of them together. Nala is slowing down as she gets older but Maya’s love for her only seems to grow. She is one lucky dog.
I stopped into the office today to retrieve my bonsai trees. They were in great health having been well cared for by my colleagues during my one-month absence. Even more satisfying was the news that the Mark Two printer which began shipping just as I was leaving has sold in excellent numbers and has been preforming well in the field.
Kyle has returned from his three-month stint in Thailand a little ahead of schedule due to the timing of an audit in California which requires his supervision. It is unclear where his next posting will take him. We are rooting for Boston but it is more likely that he will wind up in Menlo Park where his small company already has an office. Until this decision is finalized he has furnished his office with an inflatable mattress so that he does not need to find temporary housing until the decision is made. In addition, he now has one of the shortest commutes in all of California.
Jeanine was up before dawn to attend the non-denominational sunrise Easter service at the Old North Bridge. Maya and I needed a little more sleep and joined her for the 11 AM service at our church. In a departure from tradition Maya received an Easter “bucket” instead of a basket. It mattered little to her as the contents seemed more the priority. She was kind enough to share some of her more tasty gifts with me. Later in the day we joined Alan and Sarinnagh for lunch at the AKA Bistro where I had my first burger in over a month. Never has one tasted better. I spent the balance of the day beginning the long process of post-processing the images I captured over the last month and deleting the less compelling ones. The total now stands at 4,000, down from the 10,000 I shot. I have started updating posts (you may have to go back a page or two) and hope I can get fully caught up in about a week.
As much as I enjoyed my adventures in Southeast Asia, I am delighted to be home again. Jeanine and Maya picked me up at the airport and I was happy to clear customs in record time (so happy I enrolled in the Global Entry program). During the ride home, I shared the highlights of my travels which made the trip go quickly. On the home front Jeanine, Maya, and Nicolai’s girlfriend, Karuna had readied the house for Easter with a beautiful Easter Egg bouquet that now graces the picture window in our kitchen.
The third Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great (1555–1605), commenced the construction of his own tomb in around 1600. It was completed by his son after his death. Today the Tomb of Akbar the Great serves as much as a wildlife sanctuary. Deer roam openly and birds of every variety can be found singing in the trees.
I had originally planned to spend Holi in Mathura. Virtually everyone I met with advised against this because my safety could not be assured. Mathura is where the hardcore come to celebrate and drink. Think spring break. I still wanted to see the city so we stopped there on the drive back to Delhi. The birth place of Lord Krishna, Mathura is an ancient city of India known for its various monasteries of the Hindu religion and various pilgrim spots and temples. Most archeological sites are closed on Fridays but I did manage to find a massive reservoir that was pretty interesting.
With a check-in time of 1:30am for a 4:30am flight, I decided to sleep in the airport rather than stay in a hotel for a few hours. Kuldip, my faithful driver, dropped me at the airport. Even though we had only exchanged a couple dozen words over the past week (he spoke very little English) it was funny how well we had got to know each other. I have enjoyed my time traveling but am happy to be headed for home.
